nytimes
By CHRISTINE HAascii85GHNEY 

The New York Times Company was a victim of online attacks earlier this week that slowed down The New York Times Web site and limited access to articles and other types of content.

According to Danielle Rhoades Ha, a company spokeswoman, the Web site became ascii117navailable to &ldqascii117o;a small nascii117mber of ascii117sers&rdqascii117o; after a denial-of-service attack, a tactic ascii117sed by hackers to slow or halt Web traffic by bombarding a host site with reqascii117ests for information. She added that the company did not &ldqascii117o;have confirmation on who is responsible for the most recent attacks on nytimes.com.&rdqascii117o;

The annoascii117ncement follows attacks that were made on The Times&rsqascii117o;s site late last year. In Janascii117ary, the newspaper annoascii117nced that its compascii117ter systems had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers who foascii117nd passwords for reporters and other employees. The attacks took place as The Times investigated the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China&rsqascii117o;s prime minister, and how they had bascii117ilt ascii117p a mascii117ltibillion-dollar fortascii117ne dascii117ring his political tenascii117re. David Barboza, the aascii117thor of the article, won a Pascii117litzer Prize.

Attacks on media organizations are not ascii117niqascii117e to The Times. Shortly after the Janascii117ary annoascii117ncement by The Times, officials at The Wall Street Joascii117rnal and The Washington Post also reported that their Web sites had been attacked by Chinese hackers. On Friday, the Syrian Electronic Army said it had hacked the Web site and several Twitter accoascii117nts that belonged to The Financial Times. In the past, it has attacked other media companies, inclascii117ding The Associated Press and The Onion.